


vulnerability

by powerandpathos



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Anal Fingering, Barebacking, Blow Jobs, Bottom He Tian, Cock Rings, Dildos, Dry Orgasm, Fluff, M/M, Smut, Top Mo Guan Shan, Vibrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 11:38:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10786002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powerandpathos/pseuds/powerandpathos
Summary: He Tian and Guan Shan try something new (aka bottom!He Tian).Read in русский!





	vulnerability

Guan Shan finds him in the bath.

The water’s gone cold; He Tian can’t remember if he added soap. His skin is goosefleshed but He Tian isn’t sure he knows the feel of it. What he can feel is his stillness. He can feel the unshed words held on Guan Shan’s tongue, how they shimmer mist-like between them. He’s a hesitant shadow in the doorway.

He Tian’s heart lets out a single, plangent thud at the sight of him, hard enough it feels like the water should shiver: pale skin, the darkened cavern of fire-lit eyes, a mouth set hard and spiteful and keening, always, to be kissed.

‘Hey,’ Guan Shan says, edging past the doorway. He leans his head against the wooden trim of the frame. His lashes are low. Halogen lighting beams dull and soft above him, renders him shadowed and lightless.

‘Hey,’ He Tian says back. It comes out in a rasp; his voice sounds dry and scratched as an old record. Guan Shan’s look says he notices it.

It must be worse than it is; Guan Shan pushes away from the frame and stalks over. His shirt is abandoned in the space between the bath and the doorway. He drops to a knee at He Tian’s side. Somehow it’s graceful. Somehow Guan Shan has cultivated some kind of ease in his being over the past few years. Like the stiffness of a suit has been worn in well. A small, familiarly arrogant part of He Tian hopes that it’s because of him.

A hiss bursts from him when Guan Shan puts his finger in the water.

‘Are you a fucking idiot?’ he scolds immediately, accusatory. ‘You’ll get sick.’

He Tian smiles, wan. ‘Warm me up?’

‘Fuck off,’ Guan Shan starts, but his motion to stand is aborted when He Tian snatches at a pale wrist, tugs him close.

‘I didn’t want to do it,’ He Tian says. He can feel the words spilling before he can help it. In his mind they’re a hazy puzzle piece that doesn’t fit together. On his lips, they’re fully-formed and sentient and He Tian can’t catch them before they’re out. ‘I didn’t—I didn’t want to do it, Shan. You have to believe me, okay?’

Guan Shan’s look is even and intense after the flash of startlement passes. He doesn’t leave. His hand drops back into the water; the back of it brushes the underside of He Tian’s ribs. He Tian shivers, thinks, _At last._

‘It’s fine,’ Guan Shan tells him.

‘It’s not,’ He Tian says. ‘You don’t _know_. You don’t know what I—’

‘D’you want me to know?’ Guan Shan asks, sharp. His thumb is brushing over He Tian’s abdomen; the water barely moves. He’s close enough the He Tian can taste the mint gum on his breath; close enough to kiss. He Tian knows if he tries, he’ll never get it at all. Guan Shan will make him wait, and make him beg, and He Tian will get what he’s given.

He Tian tries for a laugh that comes out harsh and wrong _._ It’s convincing to neither of them. ‘Don’t need to give you another reason to hate me, do I?’

Guan Shan rolls his eyes. It diffuses the edge in the air that lies between them, but not quite. It’s not enough. He Tian feels like he’s trapped in a cage with razor blades as bars: one touch and he’ll bleed; one touch and he’ll get a sweet, stinging flash of pain.

‘You know that’s bullshit,’ Guan Shan mutters. His voice echoes dully off the bathroom tiles. In the floor-length gilded mirror in the corner of the bathroom, He Tian admires the slope of Guan Shan’s bare back as he kneels. The slight waist; shoulders that are familiarly broad. He Tian knows the feel of them well beneath his hands.

‘Show me you don’t hate me,’ He Tian says. ‘Show me it doesn’t matter.’

‘He Tian—’

He Tian lurches forward in the bath. Cold water sloshes. ‘ _Show me._ ’

Guan Shan ducks his head. He Tian wants to grab his chin and pull his face upwards. Where has the Guan Shan from a moment ago gone? The one that stared at him down and looked at him like he was offering a challenge?

Guan Shan mutters, stiltedly, ‘You—It would be easier to pretend I hate you than show you I don’t.’

He Tian smiles thinly. Isn’t that the truth.

‘Yeah?’ he says. ‘We can do that. It’ll be like old times.’

‘You dick.’

The truth rings out at them: they never really hated each other. There was boyish spite and petulant anger, nestled in stolen kisses and flying fists and the bruises forming at the corners of mouths. But _hate_ wasn’t what they’d had. Hate drowned in hot tongues and searching hands and eyes set to wander.

He Tian leans back against the lip of the tub, feels smooth ceramic against his shoulder blades. He presses his arms along the edges, fingers gripping around tight. The water is clear now; every part of him is on display. A vision of some prince lording obscenely over his castle.

‘Not going to join me?’ he asks.

Guan Shan stares at him. ‘You’re being even more annoying than usual. Fuck off.’

‘I’ll make it worth your while.’

Guan Shan doesn’t say anything. He’s perceptive—he _sees_ things sometimes—in a way that’s almost unbearable. So when he looks at He Tian, He Tian knows exactly what it is that he’s saying: sex and innuendo and ribald flirtation to cover up the rest of him. A body on show and lies on his tongue and everything else dark and swimming under the surface.

 _I see all of you_ , he’s saying. _You can’t hide it from me. Asshole._

Eventually, the silence draws out, the faucet dripping water into the bath with a soft _plink._

Guan Shan makes an irritated sound. He stands, pulls himself away. ‘Just—get out the fucking bath, would you? I’m not looking after your sick ass if you catch something.’

‘Already sick.’

Guan Shan grabs a towel from the cabinet shelf beside the sink. ‘Whatever you did—whatever your brother made you do this time—it’s not on you, it’s—’

‘It is,’ He Tian insists, standing suddenly.

Guan Shan startles slightly—nearly drops the towel. His eyes wander across the striking shape of He Tian beaded with water. After a pause, Guan Shan walks over with his arm out, and looks pointedly at He Tian’s face.

‘It is on me,’ He Tian says. ‘I knew what I was doing. I know why I did it. Like—fuck, you live in your brother’s shadow for half of your life, hating it, and you spend the rest of it wishing you could be back in it.’

‘We’ve all got our issues,’ says Guan Shan. It’s not quite a dismissal, but it’s close. It’s not an _I don’t care_ as much as an _I don’t know how to._ Guan Shan shakes the towel out in front of him. _Come on, idiot._

He Tian steps out, not towering so much over Guan Shan anymore, the added height of the clawfoot tub gone. He reaches out for the towel, but Guan Shan takes a step back, holding it close to him.

He Tian arches a brow. Stills.

Guan Shan is stepping closer, moving the towel over He Tian’s skin. It’s rudimentary and senseless; it’s like he’s cleaning a weapon. Like He Tian is something _dangerous_ to be handled with a precise sort of care.

The detachment—the clinical procedure, entirely efficient—it makes He Tian want.

‘No,’ Guan Shan warns, beginning to flush. He Tian’s getting thick and hard between his thighs. He feels heat pool and swim in his abdomen.

‘Yeah,’ He Tian murmurs. He closes the gap.

Guan Shan’s chest is warm against his own, and the coldness of his skin makes Guan Shan hiss quietly. The towel pools between them on the floor. He Tian’s hands are already wandering over him: sharp wrists and collar bones and the jagged edge of a jawline. Eyes that can’t help their softness. Fingers tugging at a trouser button and feeling strong thighs and the shivery place at the backs of his knees.

He Tian ends up on his.

Guan Shan’s cock is heavy on his tongue, hot blood filling the length until he’s hard in He Tian’s mouth. His hands are in clenched fists at his sides while He Tian tastes salt and heat, tongues at the pulse on the underside of Guan Shan’s cock. He kisses the tip, soon red and weeping, hums when Guan Shan lets out a quiet curse, a gasp, an untethered moan.

‘This was—supposed to be about _you_ ,’ Guan Shan makes out, strained and low. ‘I was gonna—try and make you feel b- _better_.’

He Tian noses at the juncture of pelvis and thigh, the shadowed hollow over Guan Shan’s artery. Reaches a hand to touch the soft skin between Guan Shan’s cock and balls. Guan Shan’s legs tremble; his fingers come up to bite into He Tian’s shoulders for balance—for support.

‘This is about me,’ He Tian tells him. ‘Getting you like this—when you’re angry and hot and—damn, that’s all about me. So fucking good to me.’

‘You’re a fucking—’ Sharp inhalation. ‘— _sadist._ ’

‘Masochist,’ He Tian murmurs, kissing the length of him, offering brief flashes of his tongue. ‘Like I didn’t do everything to get a rise. To get you to push back.’ He smiles into Guan Shan’s skin, lets his eyes drift up. ‘Please. As if this is _painful_ for you.’

Guan Shan’s cheeks are flushed and dark, eyes bright and wide as he stares down at He Tian, pupils blown like the slow spread of black watercolour across a canvas. He offers no response—no protest.

‘That’s what I thought,’ He Tian says.

Guan Shan bucks into his mouth when He Tian bottoms out, and He Tian’s hands are tight around Guan Shan’s hips while he swallows, breathes slow through his nose, tries not to gag. He knows Guan Shan can’t do this, not all the way. He Tian’s competitive streak sparks with wicked pleasure, but he knows too that Guan Shan isn’t sure he wants to be able to.

He Tian thinks Guan Shan likes it when his throat spasms, when tears leak from his eyes, when the choking becomes inevitable, throat trembling around He Tian’s cock.

And He Tian can’t help it when he fists Guan Shan’s hair, pulls him close, tight and relentless when Guan Shan struggles against him but takes it.

Now, Guan Shan’s doing the same, hips questing into He Tian’s mouth, a hot slide on his tongue. The length of his cock feels like it’s choking He Tian, blocking off his airways, making a space for itself.

He Tian closes his eyes, groans low in the back of his throat. His knees are starting to ache on the cold tiles, his cock hard and untouched and weeping against his abdomen; he’s left there to use and Guan Shan makes sure he’s used.

Guan Shan’s near silent the whole time; He Tian has to work only by tremulous breaths and bitten off words that degenerate into breathy whimpers. When he spills, his cum hot and bitter down He Tian’s throat and barely giving him a chance to swallow, there’s a choked gasp that breaks its way out of him.

Guan Shan’s knees give out beneath him, He Tian’s hands on his hips the only thing that keeps him up, arm muscles trembling, Guan Shan’s skin vibrating with the aftershocks of little deaths. He’s gleaming with sweat on hot skin, and He Tian’s forgotten about the cold.

He relishes in it: the echo of Guan Shan’s hoarse panting off the walls, a carnal confirmation of how they’ve pulled that from him.

He Tian gets to his feet, rubs his reddened knees, brushes a thumb at the corner of his mouth, savours the heady taste on his tongue of Guan Shan’s pleasure.

‘That was fun,’ He Tian says.

Guan Shan has his hands on his thighs, bent over double. His breathing comes in an uneven torrent. It’ll take an age for the flush to recede from his skin, bathing his chest crimson, creeping around his neck and the sharp edges of his cheeks. He Tian reaches between his legs, strokes himself back to stiffness at the sight of him.

‘Pervert,’ Guan Shan huffs. And then, sharper: ‘Don’t touch.’

He Tian’s hand tightens for a second, a desperate squeeze. He lets go. Holds his hands open, palms up. ‘You volunteering?’ he asks. ‘You know I’d never turn that away.’

Guan Shan looks at him. There’s an edge to his expression that He Tian hasn’t seen in a while; not since high school. Maybe middle school. Something tentative that’s trembling in wait for a hit, a lashing, for He Tian to move unstoppable and brutal in all the ways he used to be and all the ways he used to hate.

How did you get rid of instinct? How did you break a habit? Maybe Guan Shan’s flinch hasn’t dissolved. He Tian hopes his helpless, hapless penchant for violence has.

‘What?’ He Tian says. ‘You’re looking at me like—’ He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t know if he wants to explain what it feels like to look at him right now.

He takes a step forward—

‘I want to fuck you.’

—stops.

He Tian runs his tongue over his teeth. ‘As in…’

‘You know what I mean,’ Guan Shan nearly snaps.

He Tian breathes through his nose. ‘We haven’t done that before,’ he says evenly. ‘I haven’t… You’d be my first.’

‘You’d be mine.’

There’s a beat of silence. He Tian leans back on his heels. ‘Oh?’ he says carefully. There’s a worldly arch to his brow, a cultivation about the press of his lips. Guan Shan’s eyes are drawn to his lips like a lodestar, and the look he wears—He Tian feels a slight tremble keenly beneath his navel. Feels a tug.

‘Is that a yeah?’ Guan Shan asks.

He Tian folds his arms. ‘Is it?’ He Tian says. ‘I haven’t decided yet. You’d better make it worth my while.’

Guan Shan scowls. ‘I’d have you come a-fucking- _part_.’

‘Really?’ says He Tian. ‘ _How._ ’

The scowl deepens, features shadowed and harsh. He Tian feels it pooling hotly in the pit of his stomach, a steady whorl like the spinning arm of a galaxy that he knows isn’t going to stop. Not until it’s quenched. Satisfied. Not until Guan Shan has made good on every promise he has offered with his low lashes and the purse of his ruinous, furious mouth.

‘I’d—I’d get you on your back,’ he starts. ‘You’d forget fucking everything but how I feel.’

He Tian shifts. ‘And?’

‘I wouldn’t let you come until I’d finished in you.’ Guan Shan steps forward. ‘You’d be begging me. I’d control it. You’d have to take it.’

He Tian’s fingers bite into folded arms. He’s trying to imagine it; Guan Shan sliding into the tight heat of him. Guan Shan above him, flushed and swollen and choking off his words. Guan Shan tender and so soft it’s almost cruel. Guan Shan ruthless and shoving and rutting into him, unrelenting and just shy of brutal.

He Tian swallows thickly.

‘You've decided,’ Guan Shan says. It's not a question.  

He Tian nods. _Flash a smile,_ he thinks. _Make a joke._ But instead his mind is white noise and filled with the thought of Guan Shan coming inside of him.

His fingers itch for the hold of a cigarette. Black tar in his lungs as much as the hold of it in his fingers.

‘Alright. I need to—’ He stops, gesturing around the room.

‘D’you want me to—’

‘ _Help me_?’ He Tian balks. ‘Fuck. No. Thanks, babe. I don't want you putting anything in my ass unless you're getting me off.’

Guan Shan blushes bright and burning. Realisation settles on the both of them that they're going to do this. He Tian is going to let him do this. No—he _wants_ him to do this.

‘I'll wait in the bedroom,’ Guan Shan says, feet padding across the floor.

He Tian nods. The door shuts behind Guan Shan. He Tian is left with a bath full of cold water and a pile of discarded clothes. He can feel something in him shaking—too much control to let it show or let it touch him. Instead, the tremors stay inside, sit close under his skin.

_You want it. You can do it. Let him in._

He stares at himself in the mirror. Dark shadows of eyes and flushed skin. A strong nose, high brow, cheekbones and jawline that are equal parts threatening and charming. Lips lined with a sweet kind of cruelty.

What is that Guan Shan could want in this? What is it that tells Guan Shan he’s someone who can take and not just give?

He Tian’s lips twist in a wry smile.

Isn't that all it used to be—all he used to be, and still, usually, is?

Taking?

His mind pauses on the thought, on the expression on Guan Shan's face when he’d asked—no, not asked. Declared himself. _I want to fuck you._ Like he knew that He Tian would say no. Like rejection had been inevitable. Like he thinks what they have is a one-way street with no negotiation, and He Tian on his back is giving something up. Relinquishing a part of himself.

And Guan Shan had been wrong—to think that this somehow means more than it has to. That He Tian’s beyond it. And if Guan Shan was wrong about that, what else is he assuming He Tian doesn’t want? What else lies, some disparate ocean, uncrossed between them?

He Tian tugs his hands through his hair, feels the sting of it when it pulls at his scalp.

He can do this. Wants to do this. His brother’s face swims in his mind, hard and cold and painfully intense, and that expression—the disappointment, the ruined, thwarted expectation made of He Tian’s failures and misgivings; the strain—is what makes He Tian make up his mind.

He’ll do this for himself.

 

* * *

 

Guan Shan’s in the bedroom when He Tian comes out, standing by the bed. A towel on the sheets, with the familiar array: lube, toys, things they’ve used before—and things they haven’t.

He Tian archs a brow as he walks in. ‘You’ve been a busy boy.’

‘Shut up,’ Guan Shan says. ‘Just—get on the bed.’

‘Sure? You don’t want me—’

‘He Tian. Just do it.’

He Tian smirks, but he does what Guan Shan says: arranges himself on his back, feet crossed at the ankles, hands cushioned behind his head. With the movement he comes to the realisation: Guan Shan’s nervous. Of what? Of getting it wrong? Of hurting him? He Tian’s lips twitch. Of coming too soon? He wouldn’t mind that.

‘On your front,’ Guan Shan says.

He Tian pauses. Obliges. He turns slowly.

‘Kneel.’

He Tian ignores the tremble that shudders through him. The sheets bunch up under his fists, and he’s suddenly, unbearably, so fucking conscious of himself. He lifts himself up, feels his shoulderblades shifting, the shaking of his arms.

He jerks at Guan Shan’s touch, a fingertip running along the length of his spine; a hand on the inside of his thigh, nudging them apart slightly; fingernails grazing over the curve of his ass.

‘We don’t have to,’ says Guan Shan.

‘Shut up,’ says He Tian. It comes out harsher than he means, and his eyes shut for a second when he feels Guan Shan’s touch pulling away. He moves back slightly, as if to chase it, and perhaps that’s the confirmation Guan Shan needed: it isn’t that he doesn’t want it—he wants Guan Shan to know and to feel every part of him. It’s that this is new.

 _Not new_ , he thinks, as he feels a finger rubbing lube into his ass, a hesitant pressure. He knows this. This, they’ve done, but in his head he’s seeing Guan Shan’s cock, long and thin and perfect pressing inside of him. It’ll fit— _of course it’s going to fucking fit_ —but—

‘Relax,’ Guan Shan says. A hand on He Tian’s waist.

He Tian swallows a laugh, feels pressure. ‘Right—’ Choked. ‘Sure.’

‘Remember how I was?’ Guan Shan says. He’s got a knee on the bed, half of his side draped over He Tian’s back, hot skin on his skin. A finger pumps inside of He Tian slow and even. He’s taking his time with this. ‘So fucking—scared.’

‘You were biting my fucking head off,’ He Tian mutters. Guan Shan’s hand rests at the base of his spine. His quietness makes He Tian feel like he’s being laughed at, but he knows that’s probably not it; it’s focus, quiet attention. It’s the intensity of being watched and measured that He Tian knows well. Perceptiveness shrouded beneath spitting and swearing and the acid sting of rage. Guan Shan.

‘Scared,’ Guan Shan repeats. ‘Thought you were—thought you’d break me.’

‘Did I?’

A huff of breath. ‘Wouldn’t be here wanting to fuck you if you had.’ There’s a momentary silence. More lube. A second finger, and He Tian holds his breath at the stretch. Guan Shan strokes his shivered skin. ‘Or maybe I would.’ Guan Shan leans in close, breath stirring the hair at He Tian’s ear. ‘You’d like that. Revenge fucking. You love all that shit.’

This time He Tian does laugh, a choked thing. ‘So good to me,’ he says again. ‘You know me so well, Shan.’ It earns him a crook of Guan Shan’s fingers, a slow, even press on his insides and fills his throat.

‘Be quiet,’ Guan Shan scolds.

‘Thought you wanted me to _moan_?’

A broken off curse from Guan Shan. A third finger. He Tian can feel his teeth clicking together.

_It’s fine, it’s fine._

‘Am I hurting you?’ Guan Shan murmurs, fingers pumping slowly. More lube drips over his hand, coats the crease of He Tian’s ass, warming quickly with the friction. The slowness—it’s—it’s kind of Guan Shan, in a way. It’s painful.

‘Too slow,’ He Tian pushes out. His biceps are shaking, and he lowers himself down onto his forearms. Hangs his head. ‘Go faster,’ he says. ‘I want you inside.’

‘When you’re ready.’

‘Fuck—Guan Shan—’

His fingers pull out. He Tian almost groans at the emptiness. Guan Shan’s words are a sharp hiss at He Tian’s ear. ‘ _When you’re ready_ ,’ he repeats. ‘I’m—you’re not—we’re doing this properly, all right? No short cuts. _Cheating the system_ doesn’t work here.’

It’s a dig at He Tian—at his brother. At what they _do._ It’s not meant to cut; Guan Shan knows how much he’ll bleed, and how much he’s bled already from it. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting.

‘Babe—’

‘Don’t,’ Guan Shan says, and his fingers are sliding in again, easier than He Tian thinks they should. Guan Shan’s other hand moves beneath him, wrapping knowingly around his cock. His fingers press in tandem with the pump of his hand, slow, innocuous. _Torturous_.

He Tian clenches his teeth. ‘Thought you wanted me to last,’ he says, words thrown over his shoulder. Not being able to see Guan Shan’s face is killing him. ‘To come around you. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

Guan Shan’s hand moves faster. ‘You’ll last.’

‘Guan Shan,’ He Tian warns.

‘You’ll last.’

‘ _Babe_ —’

‘Fuck’s sake,’ he hears Guan Shan mutter. ‘So fucking impatient.’

‘And you’re not?’

He feels the sharp sting of a hand on his ass, hard enough to make him jerk, to tighten around Guan Shan’s fingers. He cuts off the sound of protest before it can pass his lips, copper filling his mouth with a bitten tongue.

‘Look,’ Guan Shan says.

‘You just slapped my ass.’

‘ _Look._ ’

He Tian mutters under his breath, but obliges. He twists slightly, doesn’t want to lose the fullness of Guan Shan’s fingers still rocking inside of him. He cranes his neck over his shoulder.

Seeing Guan Shan is startling, for some reason. Like the feeling of him and the sound of him had been enough to forget that, for a second, he was there too. This wasn’t 3am phone sex and closed eyes and a pumping fist. This wasn’t sweat-soaked sheets and an empty bed. This was Guan Shan here—now.

In his hand, Guan Shan is holding out a black ring, smooth save for the small ridged bumps in the latex. In his palm, it looks tame; inoffensive. He Tian’s mind is trying to catch up with himself.

Guan Shan stares at him, intent. His cheeks are red. His lip is bitten and swollen.

Realisation dawns.

‘Shit—No—Guan Shan—’

‘Shut up. You wear it or you get nothing. And you’ll get what you’re given.’

Dark pleasure shoots through him, and He Tian closes his eyes—forces himself to be still while he nods, while Guan Shan fits it in place, the ridges bumping along the length of his cock. It feels, for a second, like it’s cutting off his airway, but he makes himself settle into the tightness. Rolls his shoulders back. Breathes out slowly through his mouth.

He says, ‘I’ll kill you if you leave this on me too long.’

‘No, you fucking won’t,’ says Guan Shan. And fuck him—he’s right. He Tian bites back a grin.

‘Four fingers,’ he demands, shuffling on his knees.

‘No.’

Irritation swells. ‘ _Fuck you_ , Guan Shan, you cruel son of a bitch, I’m— _holy shit_ —’

The vibrations hit him like a shock, harder than the slap Guan Shan gave, stinging palms and redenned skin. For a second, He Tian sees nothing. His hands reach blindly for the metal headboard railing in front of him, neck straining as his head hangs low, chin tucked to his chest.

‘I figured I’d use this instead,’ Guan Shan is telling him. ‘Unless you want four fingers.’

He Tian laughs, panting and restrained, and he shakes with it. Cruel son of a bitch. He wonders how long Guan Shan has been planning this, every minor detail of it, like a movie script. No wonder he’s so harsh: he won’t know what to do if He Tian diverts and changes course. If it becomes something Guan Shan doesn’t know how to control.

It’s an indulgent thought, to throw a spanner in the works, but He Tian brushes it away. Another time. For now, he wants Guan Shan to carry out everything he wanted to make this. For tonight, he’ll be Guan Shan’s.

‘Fuck me with it,’ He Tian says. He’s feeling the ring now as his cock fills. Guan Shan’s fingers pull out, slick with lube. They dance between He Tian’s hip bones, the skin of his thighs, the hardness of his cock, like he’s not sure where he’s supposed to touch first. It’s maddening. _Choose one, please_ , he wants to beg. Won’t say it at all.

He Tian feels the head of the dildo push against him. Guan Shan has a firm grip on his waist, thumb pressing bruises into his skin, and He Tian tries to remember if this is what he was like with Guan Shan, the first time.

The memory fractures into then and now: He Tian’s abdomen against Guan Shan’s ass and impossible, tight heat; the dildo bottoming out inside of him, pressing its slow way inside; Guan Shan trembling under his hand, flushed and smarting and biting on his lip; the click of the vibrator and a blinding, blurring thrum inside of him.

‘Good?’ Guan Shan says. He asks tentatively. He Tian can picture him, lower lip drawn beneath his teeth, the shadowed line between his brows as he frowns in concentration. He Tian is overcome with the desire to swipe it away, smooth out the pout, but Guan Shan’s push-pull is insistent and unrelenting, and He Tian thinks if he lets go of the headboard railing now he won’t pull himself back up.

‘Don’t stop,’ he pushes out. ‘Don’t you goddamn dare.’

‘Thought you wanted four?’ says Guan Shan. He pauses, angles the toy, waits—slams it in with the heel of his palm.

It rips a sound from the back of He Tian’s throat, choked out and guttural, shoves him forward into the bed, a lurching scrabble for the metal railing in sweaty palms.

‘You fuck,’ he groans, mouth pressed into his bicep.

‘So you can give it but you can’t take?’

‘So fucking cruel,’ He Tian mutters.

‘Fuck off,’ says Guan Shan. He turns up the vibrator, a quick, brutal, pulsing setting. ‘I’ve been a fucking _saint_.’

He Tian trembles. The ring feels tight now, his cock heavy and hard. He reaches a hand beneath himself, but Guan Shan is quick to smack it away.

‘Babe, come on,’ He Tian wheedles. ‘Let me come. I’ve been hard since you walked through that—fucking— _fuck_ — _doorway_.’

‘Not my fault you can’t restrain yourself, pervert.’

There’s no bite in it, and He Tian wouldn’t be able to pick up on it anyway—Guan Shan’s pulsing the vibrator fast inside of him. His fingers are splayed across He Tian’s stomach. The bed dips beneath his weight, and his lips are pressing into the column of his neck, the curve of a shoulder blade, the ridge of his spine. His breath returns ghost-like to He Tian’s lips. The vibrator turns to a low hum.

‘Kiss me,’ He Tian says, neck craned, searching for his mouth. ‘Don’t let this whole thing happen without a kiss. Please, babe.’

‘Whole thing? I’m not even inside you yet.’

‘Funny,’ says He Tian. ‘I’m actually really fucking _aware_ of that right now.’

‘You want me?’

‘You know I do.’

‘Then tell me,’ Guan Shan murmurs. ‘Tell me how desperate you are for my cock.’

He Tian swears low and feral. His mind is dizzying; the lights in the room are growing dimmer; his back is beginning to ache from the position. He wants to see Guan Shan. He wants to see his face when he comes inside of him. He wants to see his eyes roll back when he bottoms out. He wants him, as He Tian always wants Guan Shan, to be lost in him.

‘Kiss me first,’ he pleads, needing that one touch. He doesn’t care that it’s a desperate plea, just shy of whining. He Tian has laid all his cards on the table, and now Guan Shan’s refusing to play.

And Guan Shan does kiss him. The angle is awkward, and their mouths fit strangely together, but He Tian shuts his eyes and groans out into Guan Shan’s mouth anyway. Guan Shan kisses like he isn’t: tender presses and fragile, lingering swipes of his tongue, lips that are cautiously eager and softer than Guan Shan has ever shown him. There’s something boyish about his kisses. Something indeterminate and naive in a way that makes heat prickle across He Tian’s skin as the vibrator thrums inside of him, and the steady thrust of it under Guan Shan’s guidance makes their kissing turn sordid.

They separate messily, spit stringing their mouths like a gossamer web, and He Tian thrills at the way Guan Shan keels forward slightly on the bed, falling into him like he’s following the touch.

The realisation that Guan Shan’s been caught out and exposed makes his eyes darken, and He Tian has only a second to draw in a breath when Guan Shan pulls out the dildo fast but sure. It’s a breathless emptiness, a wanting nothingness. He Tian’s mind sways between the sensation of his body trying to close itself and wanting nothing more than to be filled.

The vibrations switch off; Guan Shan leaves it to clatter to the floor, silent and tacky with lube.

‘Guan Shan, please, babe,’ he begs, shifting on the bed.

‘Don’t turn,’ says Guan Shan. He places a hand at He Tian’s nape. If his fingers wrapped around the length of He Tian’s throat—if he squeezed—‘This’ll be easier for you like this.’

‘Fuck, I want to look at you. Always want to look at you.’

Guan Shan says, dry, ‘Ever stop to think that you ain’t always going to get what you want?’

He Tian glances behind him. ‘With you? All the fucking time.’

Guan Shan looks away, rolls his eyes. He hooks his fingers into the V of He Tian’s waist, pulls him back with a sharp yank. The railing is just out of reach, and He Tian falls forward onto his forearms.

He Tian is suddenly very, very aware of Guan Shan’s cock resting against his ass.

Guan Shan moves his hips slow and even, a slide across him, just like the rest of this has been, some mindless drag that leaves He Tian quaking, like his shoulder blades are shifting tectonic plates and the rest of him is made only of aftershocks.

He Tian huffs. ‘Christ, would you just—Are you going to make me _beg_?’

‘You get a kick out of making me do it.’

‘Because you like it,’ says He Tian. He feels kind of stunned that he’s on his knees waiting for Guan Shan to fuck him, and he’s having to explain _this._ ‘Because I like when you do it. You and me—it’s not always going to be the same, understand?’ His fingers bite into the sheets as the head of Guan Shan’s cock presses against him—no pressure; nothing more than a touch. His breath leaves him in a rush when Guan Shan reaches beneath him again, gives a cursory jerk of his wrist, enough to remind He Tian that he hasn’t come, and won’t do until Guan Shan decides he can. ‘We’ll want—different things.’

‘Not too different,’ says Guan Shan. ‘Fucking is fucking.’

He Tian smirks. ‘Says the guy who’s only ever known the feel of my cock in his— _ah_ —’

He doesn’t finish—can’t finish—Guan Shan’s had enough—pushes inside.

He Tian feels it in his throat. He has an arm strewn across his face, eyes hidden, and his toes curl against the mattress. Guan Shan is breathing sharply as he moves in slow, unstopping increments, bottoms out, hips flush against him, skin gleaming with sweat. He leans over, pulls away the offending arm, locks his fingers with He Tian’s, presses his forehead against He Tian’s shoulder, his chest across He Tian’s back. He Tian can feel the heat of him, a slow-burning furnace that makes He Tian ache.

‘Yeah?’ says Guan Shan.

He Tian’s eyes are squeezed shut. ‘Yeah, it’s—it’s good,’ he says. It’s a lie; they both know it. It’s not bad, but the fullness is inescapable and feels like it’s a weight on the rest of him, a second skeleton pushing him down, shackles around his waist, his wrists, his cock. It’s—it’s _a lot._

And then Guan Shan starts moving, small, jerky snaps of his hips, an evolution into long strokes that forces He Tian’s eyes wide and unseeing and his breath caught in his ribcage.

‘Shit,’ he says. Guan Shan’s fingers are clenched tight in his own. ‘Fuck me, that’s—Goddamn—’

‘Shut _up_ ,’ Guan Shan bites out.

‘Shut up? Are you kidding?’ He Tian’s laugh is strained, incredulous. He arches his back, feels Guan shudder. ‘You— _Shut up?’_

‘I’m concentrating, you dick.’

He Tian grins. ‘Do I feel that good? Are you gonna blow—’

Guan Shan nudges forward, and He Tian feels his heart in his throat. When he chokes out, he’s almost sure of it. The pressure is driving him mad. It feels like every part of him has drawn up tight and locked. The tension in his lungs is dizzying. Is he breathing?

Suddenly, Guan Shan’s pulling out, and the room spins as Guan Shan flips him onto his back with a yank on his shoulder, He Tian’s legs wrapping desperate around Guan Shan’s hips. Guan Shan buries himself back inside with a sharp shove, and He Tian’s head slams into the mattress, back a sibilant curve, fingers clawing at Guan Shan’s spine.

‘Fucking hell,’ He Tian pants. ‘You’ll ruin me. You’re gonna fucking ruin me.’

‘That’s—’ Guan Shan grits his teeth. Lurches forward. ‘—the _point_.’

_I’d get you on your back. You’d forget fucking everything but how I feel._

It degenerates: flesh joining with flesh like the spark of an epiphany, kisses tonguey and filthy and searching for the parts that they still hide, nails embedding in skin like a crucifixion, bruises and teeth marks and mad, scrabbling touches of desperation make themselves seen on their flesh.

He Tian’s eyes have rolled back in his head, and he rocks sensate and overcome into Guan Shan’s joining thrusts.

‘God, I fucking love you,’ he blurts out, words slipped before he can help them, a confession for two that feels like penance on his lips.

‘Yeah?’ Guan Shan breathes. There’s enough hesitation in it to make He Tian go still. Because fuck if he hasn’t worn the feel of that look inside himself a thousand times before like a canvas. If he doesn’t know exactly what that trembling cavern feels like, dark doubt pooling like acid.

He Tian wraps his legs tighter, digs his heels in harder. There’ll be purple moons in the base of Guan Shan’s spine in the morning, crescent suns bitten into his back. Guan Shan sinks inside of him with the pull, fits himself to every part of He Tian that is open and willing to take. He Tian reaches for him with startling desperation, lurching forward, scrabbling to hold. His lips nestle at the dark shell of Guan Shan’s ear.

Guan Shan shifts—their shared moan is a lightning strike.

‘Closer,’ He Tian groans, feeling something hot and torrid building inside of him.

‘Can’t—can’t get fucking closer, you dick,’ Guan Shan mutters, shivering everywhere, breath hot as it spills over He Tian’s neck, the slope of a shoulder, the waterfall curve of his spine. ‘Where the fuck d’you think I’m gonna go?’

He Tian shakes his head, grins. He’s ridiculous. He Tian should have known it would be like this with Guan Shan: the blushing virgin peach skin wouldn’t last long. No reddened cheeks and averted eyes and lips bitten to fullness between his teeth.

This was the version He Tian thought Guan Shan probably always wanted to be around him: solid and sure in the set of his shoulders, the touch of his hands on He Tian’s skin, the pump of his hips, _in control_ in a way he had relinquished so early.

And still it lingered, that bitter aftertaste smudged into Guan Shan’s scowl, his burning eyes. The animal with hackles raised and glances darting to the corners of a room. Still, there was some rocky crag, some jagged landmass left to be paved over, and He Tian couldn’t bring himself to ever make it perfect. If Guan Shan was a fire left burning, He Tian was willingly ghosting his hand through the flames.

‘God, you feel so fucking good, Guan Shan,’ He Tian tells him through a moan. ‘So good to me. Such a good b—’

‘Like this is for you,’ Guan Shan cuts in, marking it with a snap of his hips that leaves He Tian breathless. He presses He Tian’s hands above him, nails biting, and it’s all He Tian can do to hold on with his thighs, feel his cock swollen and hard between their stomachs, friction grinding it down, sweat and lube smeared across his abdomen. The build swells like a storm, and suddenly lightning bolts are shocking He Tian across his skin.

‘Fuck, I’m gonna come,’ He Tian gasps, staccato syllables. ‘Fuck, I’m gonna—Guan Shan, you— _Fuck,_ yes, _there._ ’

‘That’s it, Tian,’ Guan Shan murmurs. ‘That’s it, you’re perfect—’

‘Take it off,’ He Tian cries, turned plaintive and desperate and _vulnerable_. ‘Fuck, Guan Shan, take it off, I swear—’

Guan Shan’s lips fall in the hollow of He Tian’s throat, mouthing at the shadowed skin bright and wet with sweat. ‘Come, He Tian, come on—’

‘ _Take it off_.’

Realisation hits Guan Shan at once, like he’s forgotten. The motion of his hips stutter as he fumbles between them, fingers circling the tip, sliding down, toying at the latex, coaxing, teasing, encouraging. He Tian thrashes.

‘Shan—Shan, please, babe—Just let me—Just take it off, god—’

Guan Shan fucks into him, twists the ring so the bumps grind against the base of his cock. The motion is suddenly choking, blinding, rendering him senseless, and when He Tian cries out at the touch, the rocking, the punishing feel of Guan Shan making a space for himself out of He Tian’s body—when Guan Shan’s lips curve feral and lick with flames at He Tian’s skin—when he grins dark and wicked and _vengeful_ —He Tian is gone.

It happens quickly: caught breath, a soundless shout buried in the flesh of Guan Shan’s shoulder, a blur of edging pain and pleasure shocks, an absence hovering in his stomach. Cruel fullness as he clenches down, as Guan Shan thrusts sharp and brutal and shuddering, a hot pulse inside of him—as Guan Shan comes inside of him. A low, aching moan like a benediction. He Tian closes his eyes.

Seconds become minutes, He Tian’s grip around Guan Shan vice-tight, the both of them shaking hard, breathing hard, trails of sweat and nail marks painting their way across hot skin and drawing gooseflesh as they cool.

The room stays dark and somehow, impossibly, unchanged. The night’s thick and heavy beyond a stretch of glass windows, smoke and cloud and halogen lights mingling through the crack in the blinds.

They stay sheltered and shattered and ruinous in each other’s arms, and panting turns steady. Trembling slows and draws attention to pleasant, blissful aching in their limbs, the sharp sting where teeth and nails have scored their lines on each others’ bodies like a map, a new world created between them—for them.

Eventually they part, Guan Shan pulling off, only to tumble graceless to the bed as He Tian pulls him close.

‘Fuck,’ Guan Shan groans, when He Tian has a leg over his waist, straddles him, bites into his neck with untethered abandon. ‘Get off. You’re disgusting.’

He Tian paws at him, relentless. There’s hot skin everywhere to grapple and contend with, smooth landmasses to map and rivers to feel pulsing beneath his tongue. He Tian wants to know every part: every tributary and shadowed canyon, every desert-arid hollow in the dip of his thighs and his collarbones that leaves him dry-mouthed and desperate. Guan Shan’s a mirage before him, shimmering and unreal and untouched, and He Tian can’t think of a more blissful hallucination to drive him insane.

‘You love it,’ He Tian says, but he rolls off eventually. Lets his thighs part. It’s obscene. ‘Well?’ he says, flicking his fingers down. ‘Make me _clean_ , then.’

‘Just ‘cause you like the taste of your own cum doesn’t mean I’m sucking mine out of you.’

‘I don’t like the _taste_ ,’ He Tian presses, sitting up. He runs fingers through the short crop of Guan Shan’s air, thumbs at the dimple in the corner of his mouth. ‘I like how you lose your fucking mind with my mouth.’

‘I don’t—Get over yourself. You’re not that good, you fuck.’

‘That’s right,’ says He Tian. ‘I do fuck.’

Guan Shan pushes him away, pulls himself to his feet at the end of the bed. There’s an irritated moe to his expression, weariness lining the corners of his eyes, but He Tian can see it. The curve, slight and fractious, that bends the shape of his lips.

‘It was all right?’ Guan Shan says. ‘You feel—’ He gestures awkwardly. ‘You don’t hurt?’

He Tian cranes his head back, lets his throat stretch long. ‘ _Fuck, don’t stop, please, Guan Shan, so—fucking—good_.’ He Tian laughs at Guan Shan’s scowl, props himself up on his forearms. ‘What do you think?’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Aw, come on,’ He Tian grins. He softens, pulls himself up, rolls the cock ring off with a slight wince and ignores the strange feeling of fullness that still lingers. He can smell the both of them—sweat and sex and headiness that He Tian is convinced is all Guan Shan, his gunfire breath and gunpowder kisses and smoke that makes He Tian’s coal heart burn itself up.

Somehow Guan Shan feels smaller again in his arms, light-boned and soft—a freckle dusting and pale skin and feathered hair—in every way He Tian knows he’s not. Every way He Tian just felt he wasn’t.

‘So good to me,’ He Tian murmurs, drawing him close, arms around his shoulders, lips pressed to his temple. The feeling of fullness, with Guan Shan enclosed within the cage of his embrace, makes He Tian’s heart ache.

‘You don’t have to—’

He Tian cuts him off. ‘You didn’t have to do that for me.’

‘I said it wasn’t for you—’

‘And we both know you’re a shitty liar.’

‘You’re a good one,’ Guan Shan reminds him.

He Tian hums. Feels how they’re flushed and pressed close, every part of He Tian shifted slightly upwards: knees pressing into the flesh of Guan Shan’s thighs, Guan Shan’s collar bones against He Tian’s chest. They need to shower; they’re sticky and filthy and He Tian wants to drag his nails down Guan Shan’s back, taste his skin, clean and florid.

‘Do you know when I’m telling the truth?’ He Tian asks him. ‘That everything I say—that I mean it. Not just because it’s some lust-high mood. That because you fuck me and I tell you I love you that I don’t mean it.’ His lips traverse the fragile frame of Guan Shan’s face, sharp cheekbones and soft eyelids, lips already open to be taken. ‘I meant it before,’ He Tian murmurs. ‘I mean it now.’

Guan Shan’s shaking, a tremble that He Tian knows is _different_. He ducks his head, grazes his teeth along He Tian’s arteries, tasting for a pulse, ghosts a kiss across his collarbones.

It’s silence. He Tian hears it clear and true. But he feels it. The quiet certainty of an _I love you too._ Vulnerability vanquished by gesture. He Tian can understand this; he remembers how things used to be. How safe reverting to physicality and heavy-handed touches was.

He’ll gather every kiss and touch and stinging remark, and bury them in himself like they’re the words he wants to hear, because if he doesn’t hear them—then he knows at least he’ll feel them.

**Author's Note:**

> please kudos if you enjoyed, or [like/reblog on tumblr](http://thefearofthetruth.tumblr.com/post/160198232429/fic-vulnerability).


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